This week, try to pay attention to how your teacher asks questions and facilitates discussion in his or her classes. What types of questions does your CT ask? Are most of the questions asking students to relay facts or textbook definitions (recall) or to apply a concept to a new situation or compare it to another concept (application or analysis). Does your teacher ever encourage his or her students to be critical or skeptical? If so, when and how? Does your CT ever ask students to provide evidence to support a claim or explain their thinking? Does your teacher facilitate classroom discussion so that students are expressing scientific ideas to other students? Finally, does your CT vary the type of questions he or she asks depending on the level of the class, or the perceived ability of the student? Remember to reflect on what types of classroom discourse you want to foster in your classroom, how you will go about doing this, and why
Observations:
My CT has a variety of abilities in her classroom, ranging from children with IEP's who receive pass fail grading all the way to students who are achieving well beyond grade level in all aspects, both academic and social. This undoubtedly affects the level and type of question that she asks the class. I have seen her ask simple recall questions at times, although not often. Typically the questions she seems to ask are around DOK 2, requiring students to recreate a simple concept showing understanding, but not requiring high level analytical or critical thinking skills. An example of this would be when she asked students to come to the board and draw how the carbon cycle was happening in the aquarium and terrarium they had constructed. They were not simply drawing the generic cycle in the book, but they also had a large scaffold in knowing that drawing. Other times she will ask higher level questions and promote discussion that leads to the class working together to determine an answer. She will often stop in these discussion and ask a student to summarize what has been said so far, a simple question that help all students to understand as well as quickly check for understanding. Although this is only a sixth grade classroom, and pure scientific conversation may be a little ways off in the future, my CT does ask questions which spark the kids to talk about scientific ideas, even if the words aren’t there yet. This allows the students to learn from each other, themselves and the teacher.
Reflections:
It is very important to keep all students involved in the classroom, not just the high or low level learners. This is accomplished by asking questions at a variety of levels, not just simple recall, or conversely only questions that the higher level learners can answer. By asking questions that build in difficulty about the same topic my CT is able to keep all students engaged, none or over or under challenged. These team attitudes during class questions and answer sessions helps to build a true sense of community in the classroom, and hopefully beyond. This is a common strand to many mission statements. Students of all levels need to see their worth, as well as be challenged, and asking questions to these different levels helps to achieve that. Beyond this students begin to take an active role in making discussion nod discoveries as many are in the ‘real world’, collaboratively.
I hope to foster this type of discussion in my future classroom. To revisit one of my favorite quotes I have ever read in an education text, ‘students don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care” – Rick Wormelli. I personally feel that this also applies to the other students, that once the feel like they are part of an accepting community; they are much more apt to take risk in their learning, and thus become active learners.
Class Topic: Varied
Grade: 6
Observed by: Chris Liberti
Observations:
My CT has a variety of abilities in her classroom, ranging from children with IEP's who receive pass fail grading all the way to students who are achieving well beyond grade level in all aspects, both academic and social. This undoubtedly affects the level and type of question that she asks the class. I have seen her ask simple recall questions at times, although not often. Typically the questions she seems to ask are around DOK 2, requiring students to recreate a simple concept showing understanding, but not requiring high level analytical or critical thinking skills. An example of this would be when she asked students to come to the board and draw how the carbon cycle was happening in the aquarium and terrarium they had constructed. They were not simply drawing the generic cycle in the book, but they also had a large scaffold in knowing that drawing. Other times she will ask higher level questions and promote discussion that leads to the class working together to determine an answer. She will often stop in these discussion and ask a student to summarize what has been said so far, a simple question that help all students to understand as well as quickly check for understanding. Although this is only a sixth grade classroom, and pure scientific conversation may be a little ways off in the future, my CT does ask questions which spark the kids to talk about scientific ideas, even if the words aren’t there yet. This allows the students to learn from each other, themselves and the teacher.Reflections:
It is very important to keep all students involved in the classroom, not just the high or low level learners. This is accomplished by asking questions at a variety of levels, not just simple recall, or conversely only questions that the higher level learners can answer. By asking questions that build in difficulty about the same topic my CT is able to keep all students engaged, none or over or under challenged. These team attitudes during class questions and answer sessions helps to build a true sense of community in the classroom, and hopefully beyond. This is a common strand to many mission statements. Students of all levels need to see their worth, as well as be challenged, and asking questions to these different levels helps to achieve that. Beyond this students begin to take an active role in making discussion nod discoveries as many are in the ‘real world’, collaboratively.I hope to foster this type of discussion in my future classroom. To revisit one of my favorite quotes I have ever read in an education text, ‘students don’t care how much you know till they know how much you care” – Rick Wormelli. I personally feel that this also applies to the other students, that once the feel like they are part of an accepting community; they are much more apt to take risk in their learning, and thus become active learners.
Class Topic: Varied
Grade: 6
Observed by: Chris Liberti